31.7.13

Forget Judas, It’s the Audience Who Undergoes the Trial (at TFPO)

The last time I occupied an uncomfortable seat at the Hudson Theatre's dingy Backstage, it was for Julia Sweeney's atheist epiphany Letting Go of God. Ironic, then, that the same space would be given over to an exercise in Christian apologetics. The difference between the two theatrical efforts, other than religious polarity and separation in years, is that Sweeney's monologue is rooted in personal experience and presented with genuine emotion, humour, and insightful reflection. By contrast, The Last Days of Judas Iscariot by Stephen Adly Guirgis is the very model of artifice, an indulgence of religion's worst instinct to fabricate comforting, self-serving answers in the absence of meaningful evidence and reason. The only suspense is waiting to discover whether Guirgis’s convictions are those of a playwright or a propagandist.

Read the rest of my review of The Last Days of Iscariot, on stage at the Hudson Backstage until August 24, at The Front Page Online.